Paul Daugherty: Anthony Munoz on Junior Seau, dangers of football

May 5, 2012

Junior Seau was inducted into the San Diego Chargers Hall of Fame in November. / AP Photo/Denis Poroy

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Junior Seau, a man with seemingly so much to live for, stuck a gun in his chest last week and blew himself to a better place. Seau was to San Diego what Anthony Munoz is to Cincinnati. Philanthropic, iconic, larger than life. And then he was an obituary.

You are the parent of an athletically inclined 8-year-old. Maybe he is big for his age. Maybe the spirals are spinning cleanly from his hand already. He has a gift for catching a football, or the sixth sense for daylight that good running backs have. Football is the sport of the land. He would like to play.

What would you say?

Seau is the third former NFL player in 15 months to shoot and kill himself. Researchers concluded Dave Duerson suffered from a neurodegenerative disease linked to concussions; Ray Easterling was part of a lawsuit against the league, for its handling of brain-related injuries.

There is no medical evidence yet linking Seau’s suicide to brain trauma from playing the game. Given the way Seau played for 20 years, no one should be surprised if research does show a connection. One day after the NFL players union filed a grievance in federal court, challenging commissioner Roger Goodell’s power to punish players unilaterally, the family of Junior Seau agreed to donate his brain to research.

That twisted connection does not go unnoticed. While the league and its players debate and posture and protect their own interests, an 8-year-old somewhere is asking his parents if he can play football.

What would you say?

Anthony Munoz had an answer. It was reasoned and thoughtful and colored by tragedy. He didn’t know Junior Seau well, but he knew him entirely: Fellow alumnus of the University of Southern California, wildly successful in the NFL, a charitable foundation that had raised $4 million. An impoverished, difficult, urban youth. A proud, stoic player who’d never let you see him cry. In many ways, they were twin sons of different mothers.

A few weeks ago, Munoz spent a weekend in Los Angeles with Seau and six other prominent USC football alums. Seau’s daughter had just been accepted to the school. Munoz said Seau was “energetic and happy. You’d never have known anything was wrong.’’

I asked Munoz what he’d do now, if he had an 8-year-old son who wanted to be like his dad. Half-jokingly, he said, “Knowing what I know now, I’d pay for the most expensive golf lessons I could find.’’

He didn’t do that for his son Michael, who did not play football until his freshman year at Moeller. That wasn’t by choice: For many years, Michael was simply too big for teams in his age group. Michael had a starry football career. He was a consensus all-American at Tennessee, where he started 47 games in four years, despite knee and shoulder injuries. Incredibly, he wasn’t drafted.

When Anthony reflects on that now, his initial anger and confusion have been replaced with relief. Michael opted not to sign a rookie free-agent contract. He is successful in his career and with his family. There are no more what-ifs. “We raised our kids to make their own decisions,’’ Anthony said Saturday. “In retrospect, it’s probably a tremendous thing, health-wise.’’

There are football battle scars that are always going to be the cost of doing business: Arthritic knees, shoulders that pop, noses resembling a mountain pass. Playing with grandkids, rising from a cushy chair, going one whole day without an Advil chaser: These are chronic wishes for men who once threw themselves at one another for a living. Some injuries are seen as acceptable collateral damage.

And there are scars that are unacceptable. Such as dementia and depression and suicide, resulting from a brain that has been wantonly pushed and shoved too far. Football might be our greatest game. It isn’t worth dying for.

What would you say?

Are we overreacting? Tell it to Seau’s family. Or to Duerson’s, or Mike Webster’s. Or to any former NFL player who can remember his keys and forget his car.

The league might not be killing the golden goose. It’s hard to imagine such a wildly popular entertainment losing its grip on the country’s sporting conscious. But football has reached a crossroads, because if you are the father of an 8-year-old this morning, maybe you are handing him a soccer ball. Or at least thinking about it.